Author Monica Marie Jones at Da Book Joint in Chicago, IL
I remember the first day of school in either kindergarten or the 1st grade when the teacher asked, “Who knows how to read?” I promptly raised my hand and then looked around to see all of the other children because I was certain that reading was common place. I was shocked to see that I was the only one.
She asked me to come up and read a book that she had. I not only read it aloud for the entire class, but I also inserted the proper pregnant pauses when I came to periods and the exaggerated excitement when I came to exclamation marks.
As I’m sure you can gather by now, I have ALWAYS loved to read. Books were my escape from the harsh realities of everyday life. If my world seemed unbearable, then I could delve into the world of the characters in a book and be an invisible, innocent bystander.
I never quite understood the other side the book world until recently when I became an author myself.
There are so many aspects that I could discuss, but today I am going to focus on independent bookstores since I just came back from doing signings as a couple of them on my book tour.
Last month I attended the Great Lakes Book Sellers Association Convention. It was there that I realized how hard it is for independent bookstores. I knew that they had competition when it came to the major booksellers like Borders and Barnes and Nobles, but I never realized how much of a monopoly that Amazon had on the market.
Several independent bookstores are suffering and struggling to stay afloat. Some of the more unfortunate ones have already gone out of business.
At the beginning of my book tour I wondered if doing signings at bookstores was really worth the time, effort and money that I put into them. I would only sell a few books at each one. I considered finding a different route to sell my books. But after spending some time with the owners, and really learning what the real deal was, I decided that I am going to make it a part of my life’s mission to support independent bookstores by any means necessary.
With that said, I will see you soon, at an independent bookstore near you!
